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Ole Miss women's basketball fends off Georgia for critical SEC road win

11by:Jake Thompson•01/30/25•

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Ole Miss guard Kennedy Todd-Williams attempts a shot against Georgia at Stegman Colisuem in Athens, Georgia on Thursday, January 30, 2025. Mandatory credit: Ole Miss athletics

There is always the possibility of a letdown the following game coming off an emotional one such as the loss to Texas that the Ole Miss women’s basketball team experienced on Sunday.

Thursday presented that opportunity when the Rebels played the first of their two road games this week, starting in Athens at Georgia.

The first 10 minutes were dicey but Ole Miss fended off the Bulldogs for a 63-58 win inside Stegman Coliseum for a critical road win in Southeastern Conference play.

Everything that did not work for the Rebels (14-6, 5-3 SEC) in Sunday’s loss to No. 7 Texas went wright in the closing stretch on Thursday. Similar to the men’s result against the Longhorns on Wednesday back in Oxford.

There are ugly games and then there is the first quarter of this game. Both teams combined for 19 turnovers and Ole Miss accounted for nine of them, matching the amount of points it scored.

Despite the poor play head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin stuck to what she has done all season in these moments. She did not call a timeout and let her players fight through it and grow taking live rounds.

“We were just really getting a little bit frazzled, but I never felt anxious in that situation because we still held them to 10 points,” McCuin said. “So, just figuring it out. When you lose an emotional game like Texas there’s a lot of stuff that comes with that. That was still in the back of our players’ minds. What I loved about what they did was they figured out how to win.”

On offense the Rebels did score less than 14 points in each of the final three quarters. Madison Scott led Ole Miss with 19 points, tying Georgia’s Asia Avinger for the game high. Kennedy Todd-Williams followed with 15 points. Starr Jacobs and KK Deans scored eight points each.

Rebounding played a critical role down the stretch. Christeen Iwuala came up with a pair of offensive rebounds that allowed the Rebels to keep possession and lead to a pair of made free throws by Deans with 19 seconds remaining to get up by five at the time.

“We felt like there was an advantage there for us,” McCuin said of rebounding. “Not only did we come up with rebounds, we came up with timely ones. That rebound that Christeen got and then understanding that it was a jump ball situation and passing it out instead of allowing it to tie up, you all can’t even understand how proud I am of this team. Because I have seen a lot these instances happen before and we have not come out with the win. This was a huge win for us.”

Ole Miss won the overall rebound battle, 40-22, as well as the offensive rebounds by a 15-2 margin.

Next up is a trip to No. 23 Vanderbilt on Sunday at 2 p.m. CT on SECN+.

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